World’s first station-free bike sharing platform ‘Ofo’ is reportedly closing down its operations in India. The Alibaba-backed Chinese company, therefore, has fired a majority of the staff that was responsible for its India operations.
The company was established in the country last year in the month of November. It had spread its business in various cities of India including Chennai, Indore, Ahmedabad, and Pune. However, the company claimed that Ofo has stopped its operations in all the but in Pune, it has tied up with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to support the Pune Cycle Plan.
Ofo had promised the employees that they would have a discussion regarding the operational roadmap for the next few years. But, these things never took place and the employees were not even given the option before being fired to relocate to other areas in which Ofo operates.
“Our focus now is on our priority markets and moving towards profitability. We are communicating with our local markets about our plans moving forward,” an Ofo spokesperson said.
It is being reported that the reason for this is that the company is facing some financial issues and is thus failing to maintain overseas operations. Ofo claimed to have witnessed 1.1 million rides within four months of operations in the country.
India has proved to be one of the major markets for the company as it had shown a good result in the years after the launch. Also, the bike service had partnered with payments giant Paytm to offer digital payments option in order to boost up its operations.
The company stated that it had no intention to defraud its employees during the bike collection process, and was just trying to modify its operations in a period of uncertainty. It also added that the aim is to exit the market responsibly.